who has implanted them in me, who has transformed me, a man full of
weakness, misery, and lust, of pride and ambition, into a man exempt
from all these evils, by the power of his grace, to which all the
glory is due; since of myself I have only misery and sin.
_OF THE TRUE RIGHTEOUS MAN AND OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN._
_Members. To begin with that._--To regulate the love which we owe
to ourselves, we must imagine a body full of thinking members, for we
are members of the whole, and see how each member should love itself,
etc....
If the feet and the hands had each a separate will they could only be
in their order in submitting this separate will to the primary will
which governs the whole body. Apart from that they are in disorder
and misfortune, but in willing only the good of the body they find
their own good.
_Morality._--God having made the heavens and the earth, which cannot
feel the happiness of their being, he has been pleased to make
beings who should know it, and who should compose a body of thinking
members. For our members do not feel the happiness of their union,
of their admirable intelligence, of the care which nature has taken
to infuse into them a mind, and to make them grow and endure. How
happy would they be if they could see and feel it. But in order to
this they must needs have intelligence to know it, and good will
to consent to that of the universal soul. For if, having received
intelligence, they used it to retain nourishment for themselves
without allowing it to pass to the other members, they would be not
only unjust but also miserable, and would hate rather than love
themselves, their blessedness as well as their duty consisting in
their consent to the guidance of the general soul to which they
belong, who loves them better than they love themselves.
To be a member, is to have neither life, being, nor movement save by
the spirit of the body, and for the body; the separate member, seeing
no longer the body to which it belongs, has only a waning and dying
existence. Yet it believes it is a whole, and seeing not the body
on which it depends, it believes it depends only on self and wills
to constitute itself both centre and body. But not having in itself
a principle of life, it only goes astray, and is astonished in the
uncertainty of its being; fully aware that it is not a body, yet not
seeing that it is a member of a body. Then when at last it arrives at
the knowledge of self, it has returned as it were to its own home,
and loves itself only for the body's sake, bewailing that in the past
it has gone astray.
It cannot by its nature love aught else, if not for itself and to
subject it to self, since each thing loves itself above all. But in
loving the body it loves itself, because it has no being but in it,
by it, and for it. _Qui adhæret Deo unus spiritus est._
The body loves the hand, and the hand, if it had a will, should love
itself in the same proportion as that in which it is loved by the
soul. All love beyond this is unjust.
_Adhærens Deo unus spiritus est._ We love ourselves because we are
members of Jesus Christ. We love Jesus Christ because he is the body
of which we are members. All is one, one is in the other, like the
Three Persons.
The examples of the noble deaths of the Lacedæmonians and others
scarce touch us, for what good do they to us? But the example of the
death of the martyrs touches us, for they are our members. We have
a common tie with them, their resolution can form ours, not only by
example, but because it has perhaps merited ours. There is nothing
of this in the examples of the heathen; there is no bond between us.
As we do not become rich by seeing a rich stranger, but by seeing a
father or a husband who is so.
We must love God only, and hate self only.
If the foot had always been ignorant that it belonged to the body,
and that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only had
the knowledge and the love of self, and if it came to know that it
belonged to a body on which it depended, what regret, what confusion
for the past life, for having been useless to the body from which its
whole life was derived, which would have reduced it to nothing if it
had rejected it and separated it from itself, as it held itself apart
from the body. What prayers for its preservation in the body, with
what submission would it allow itself to be governed according to
the will which rules the body, even to consent, if need be, that it
should be cut off, or it would lose its character of member. For each
member must be content to perish for the body, for which alone the
whole exists.
To ensure the happiness of the members, they must have one will, and
submit it to the body.
It is false that we are worthy of the love of others, it is unjust
that we should desire it. If we were born reasonable and impartial,
knowing ourselves and others, we should not give this bias to our
will. But we are born with it; we are therefore born unjust, for all
tends to self. This is contrary to all order. We should look to the
general advantage, and the inclination to self is the beginning of
all disorder, in war, in politics, in economy, and in man's own body.
The will therefore is depraved. If the members of natural and civil
communities tend towards the well-being of the body, the communities
themselves should tend to the welfare of another more general body of
which they are members. We should therefore look to the whole. We are
therefore born unjust and depraved.
He who hates not in himself his self-love, and that instinct which
leads him to make himself a God, is indeed blinded. All must see
that nothing is so opposed to justice and truth. For it is false
that we deserve this, and it is unjust and impossible to attain it,
since all demand the same. Manifestly then injustice is innate in us,
from which we cannot free ourselves, yet from which we ought to free
ourselves.
But no religion has pointed out that this is a sin, or that we are
born in it, or that we are bound to resist it, or has thought of
offering us a cure.
It is unjust that any should attach themselves to me, even though
they do it with pleasure, and voluntarily. I should deceive those
in whom I aroused this desire, for I am not the final end of any,
nor have I that which can satisfy them. Am I not about to die? And
thus the object of their attachment will die. Thus as it would
be blameworthy in me to cause a falsehood to be believed, though
I should gently insinuate it, though it should be believed with
pleasure, and though it should give me pleasure; in like manner it
is blameworthy in me if I make myself beloved, and if I draw persons
to attach themselves to me. I ought to warn those who are ready to
consent to a lie, that they should not believe it, whatever advantage
accrues to me from it; and in the same way that they should not
attach themselves to me; for they ought to spend their life and their
pains in pleasing God, or in seeking him.
Self-will never will be satisfied, though it should have power for
all it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it.
Without it we cannot be discontented, with it we cannot be content.
To hate self, and to seek a truly lovable being to love, is therefore
the true and only virtue, for we are hateful because of lust. But as
we cannot love what is outside us, we must love a being which is in
us, yet not ourselves, and that is true of each and all men. Now the
universal Being is alone such. The Kingdom of God is within us; the
universal good is within us, is our very selves, yet not ourselves.
If there be a God we ought to love him alone, and not the creatures
of a day. The reasoning of the wicked in the _Book of Wisdom_ is
only founded on the non-existence of God. "Given that there is no
God," say they, "let us take delight in the creature. It is because
there is nothing better." But were there a God to love they would not
have come to this conclusion, but to the contrary. And this is the
conclusion of the wise: "There is a God, therefore we ought not to
take delight in the creature."
Therefore all that leads us to attach ourselves to the creature is
evil, because it hinders us from serving God if we know him, and from
seeking him if we know him not. Now we are full of lust. Therefore we
are full of evil, therefore we should hate ourselves and all which
urges us to attach ourselves to aught but God only.
That we must love one God only is a thing so plain, that no miracles
are needed to prove it.
That is a good state of the Church in which it is upheld by God alone.
Two laws suffice to regulate the whole Christian republic better than
all political laws.
_Against those who trusting in the mercy of God live carelessly,
without doing good works._--As the two sources of our sins are pride
and indolence, God has revealed to us two of his attributes for their
cure, mercy and justice. The property of justice is to abase our
pride, however holy may be our works, _et non intres in judicium,
etc._; and the property of mercy is to combat indolence by exciting
to good works, according to that passage: "The goodness of God leads
to repentance," and that other of the Ninevites: "Let us do penance
to see if peradventure he will pity us." Thus mercy is so far from
authorising slackness, that it is on the contrary the quality which
formally assails it, so that instead of saying: "Were there not mercy
in God, we must make every effort after virtue," we should say, on
the contrary, that because there is mercy in God we must make every
effort.
The world exists for the exercise of mercy and judgment, not as if
men were in it as they came from the hands of God, but as the enemies
of God, to whom he gives by grace light enough to return, if they
will seek him and follow him, and to punish them, if they refuse to
seek him and follow him.
We implore the mercy of God, not that he may leave us in peace in our
vices, but that he may free us from them.
There are but two kinds of men, the righteous, who believe themselves
sinners, and sinners, who believe themselves righteous.
_There are two kinds of men in each religion._--Among the heathen,
worshippers of beasts, and the worshippers of the one God revealed by
natural religion.
Among the Jews, the carnal and the spiritual, who were the Christians
of the old law.
Among the Christians, those coarser ones, who are the Jews of the new
law.
The carnal Jews looked for a carnal Messiah, and the coarser
Christians believe that the Messiah has dispensed them from the love
of God. True Jews and true Christians adore a Messiah who makes them
love God.
Carnal Jews and the heathen have their miseries, and Christians also.
There is no Redeemer for the heathen, for they do not even hope for
one. There is no Redeemer for the Jews, who hope for him in vain.
There is a Redeemer only for the Christians.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, pride, etc.
There are three orders of things: the flesh, the spirit, and the will.
The carnal are the rich and kings, who have the body as their object.
Enquirers and men of science, who have mind for their object.
The wise, who have right for their object.
God must reign over all, and all must be referred to him. In things
of the flesh lust reigns especially, in men of intellect curiosity
especially, in wisdom pride especially.
Not that a man may not boast of wealth or knowledge, but there is no
room for pride, for in granting that a man is learned there will be
no difficulty in proving to him that he is wrong to be proud. Pride
finds its proper place in wisdom, for it cannot be granted to a man
that he has made himself wise and that he is wrong to be proud of
it. For that is just. Now God alone gives wisdom, and therefore _qui
gloriatur in Domino, glorietur_.
All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, or the pride of life; _libido sentiendi, libido sciendi,
libido dominandi_. Woe to the accursed land which these three rivers
of flame enkindle rather than moisten. Happy they who are on these
rivers, not overwhelmed nor carried away, but immovably fixed upon
the floods, not standing, but seated, and on a firm and sure base,
whence they rise not before the dawn; but where, having rested in
peace, they stretch forth their hands to him who will lift them
up, and cause them to stand firm and upright in the porches of the
heavenly Jerusalem, where pride may no more assail nor cast them
down; and who yet weep, not to see all those perishable things
crumble which the torrents sweep away, but at the remembrance of
their dear country, that heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember
without ceasing while the days of their exile are prolonged.
The rivers of Babylon rush and fall and sweep away.
O holy Sion, where all is firm and nothing falls.
We must sit upon the floods, not under them or in them, but on them;
not standing but seated, being seated to be humble, and above them in
security. But in the porches of Jerusalem we shall stand.
Let us see if our pleasure is stable or transitory, if it pass away,
it is a river of Babylon.
There are few true Christians, I say this even in regard to faith.
There are many who believe, but from superstition. There are many who
believe not, out of reckless living; few are between the two.
I do not include here those whose morality is true holiness, nor
those whose belief springs from the heart.
It is not a rare thing to have to blame the world for too much
docility, it is a vice as natural as unbelief, and as pernicious.
Superstition.
Abraham took nothing for himself, but only for his servants; so the
just man takes for himself nothing of the world, nor of the applause
of the world, but only for his passions, which he uses as their
master, saying to the one, 'Go,' and to another, 'Come.' _Sub te erit
appetitus tuus._ The passions thus subdued are virtues. God himself
attributes to himself avarice, jealousy, anger; and these are virtues
as well as kindness, pity, constancy, which are also passions. We
must treat them as slaves, and leaving to them their food hinder the
soul from taking any of it. For when the passions gain the mastery
they are vices, then they furnish nutriment to the soul, and the soul
feeds on it and is poisoned.
The just man acts by faith in the smallest things; when he blames his
servants, he wishes for their conversion by the spirit of God, and
prays God to correct them; for he expects as much from God as from
his own blame, and he prays God to bless his corrections. And so with
all his other actions.
Of all that is in the world he takes part only in what is unpleasant,
not in what is pleasant. He loves his neighbours, but his charity
does not restrict itself within these bounds, but flows out to his
enemies, and then to those of God.
This is common to ordinary life and that of the saints, that all
endeavour after happiness, and differ only in the object in which
they place it. Both call those their enemies who hinder them from
attaining it.
We should judge of what is good or bad by the will of God, who cannot
be either unjust or blind; and not by our own will, which is always
full of malice and error.
Joh. viii. _Multi crediderunt in eum. Dicebat ergo Jesus: "Si
manseritis..., vere mihi discipuli eritis, et veritas liberabit
vos." Responderunt: Semen Abrahae sumus et nemini servimus unquam._
There is a great difference between disciples and true disciples.
They are recognised by saying to them that the truth will make them
free; for if they answer that they are free, and that it is in their
power to come out of slavery to the devil, they are indeed disciples,
but not true disciples.
"Might I but see a miracle," men say, "I would become a Christian."
How can they be sure they would do that of which they are ignorant?
Men imagine that conversion consists in making of the worship of God
such a transaction and way of life as they picture to themselves.
True conversion consists in the annihilation of self before that
universal Being whom we have so often provoked, and who might with
justice destroy us at any moment; in recognising that we can do
nought without him, and have merited nothing from him but his wrath.
It consists in knowing that there is unconquerable opposition between
us and God, and that without a mediator there could be no communion
with him.
_Comminutum cor._ Saint Paul. There is the Christian character.
_Albe vous a nommé, je ne vous connais plus._ Corneille. That is the
inhuman character. The human character is the contrary.
With how little pride a Christian believes himself united to God,
with how little abasement does he rank himself with the worms of
earth. What a way is this to receive life and death, good and evil.
It is true there is difficulty in entering into a devout life, but
this difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us,
but from the irreligion which is still there. If our senses were
not opposed to penitence, and if our corruption were not opposed to
the purity of God, there would be nothing in this painful to us. We
suffer only in proportion as the vice which is natural to us resists
supernatural grace; our heart feels torn asunder by these conflicting
efforts, but it would be most unjust to impute this violence to God,
who draws us, instead of attributing it to the world, which holds us
back. As a child which a mother tears from the robbers' arms, in the
anguish it suffers should love the loving and legitimate violence
of her who procures its liberty, and detest only the imperious and
tyrannical violence of those who retain it unjustly. The most cruel
war which God can make against men in this life is to leave them
without that war which he came to bring. "I came to bring war," he
says, and to inform them of this war, "I came to bring fire and the
sword." Before him the world lived in a false peace.
The exterior must be joined to the interior to obtain aught from God,
that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, etc., in order
that proud man, who would not submit himself to God, should now be
subject to the creature. To expect succour from these externals is
superstition, to refuse to join them to interior acts is pride.
_External works._--There is nothing so perilous as that which is
pleasing to God and to man; for those conditions which are pleasing
to God and man, have one side which is pleasing to God, and another
which is pleasing to man; as the greatness of Saint Theresa. That
which was pleasing to God was her profound humility under her
revelations, what was pleasing to men was her light. And thus we
torment ourselves to imitate her discourses, thus thinking to imitate
her condition, and thereby to love what God loves, and to place
ourselves in a state which God loves.
It is better not to fast, and be thereby humbled, than to fast and be
puffed up therewith.
The pharisee and the publican.
What will memory avail me if it be alike hurtful and helpful, since
all depends upon the blessing of God, who gives only to things done
for him according to his rules and in his ways, the manner being thus
as important as the thing, and perhaps more; since God can bring good
out of evil, and because without God we bring evil out of good.
The hope which Christians have of possessing an infinite good is
mingled with actual enjoyment as well as with fear; for it is not
as with those who should hope for a kingdom, of which they being
subjects would have nothing; but they hope for holiness, and freedom
from injustice, of which they possess somewhat.
None is so happy as a true Christian, none so reasonable, none so
virtuous, none so amiable.
We remove ourselves from God only by removing ourselves from love.
Our prayers and our virtues are abomination before God if they are
not the prayers and the virtues of Jesus Christ. And our sins will
never be the object of the mercy, but of the justice of God, if they
are not those of Jesus Christ.
He has adopted our sins, and has admitted us into covenant with him,
for virtues are his own, and sins are strange to him; while virtues
are strange to us, and sins are our own.
Let us change the rule which we have hitherto adopted for judging
what is good. We have had our own will as our rule in this respect,
let us now take the will of God, all that he wills is good and right
to us, all that he wills not is evil.
All that God allows not is forbidden; sins are forbidden by the
general declaration that God has made, that he allows them not.
Other things which he has left without general prohibition, and
which for that reason are said to be permitted, are nevertheless not
always permitted; for when God removes any one of them from us, and
when, by the event, which is a manifestation of the will of God, it
appears that God allows not that we should have a thing, that is then
forbidden to us as sin, since the will of God is that we should not
have one more than the other. There is this sole difference between
these two things, that it is certain God will never allow sin, while
it is not certain that he will never allow the other. But so long
as God allows it not, we must look upon it as sin, so long as the
absence of God's will, which alone is all goodness and all justice,
renders it unjust and evil.
True Christians nevertheless submit to folly, not because they
respect folly, but the commandment of God, who for the punishment of
men has put them in subjection to their follies. _Omnis creatura
subjecta est vanitati. Liberabitur._ Thus Saint Thomas explains the
passage in Saint James on giving place to the rich, that if they do
it not in the sight of God the commandment of religion is set at
naught.
All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life, but among
all those which the world has invented none is so much to be feared
as the theatre. It is so natural and so delicate a representation
of the passions that it moves them, and makes them spring up in our
heart, above all that of love, principally when it is represented as
very chaste and very honourable. For the more innocent it seems to
innocent souls, the more are they capable of being touched by it; its
violence pleases our self-love, which at once forms the desire of
causing the same effects which we see so well represented, and at the
same time we make for ourselves a conscience founded on the honour of
the feelings which we see there. And this extinguishes the fear of
pure souls which imagine there is no harm to purity in loving with a
love which seems to them so moderate.
Thus we leave the theatre with our heart so full of all the beauty
and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind so persuaded of
its innocence, that we are fully prepared to receive its first
impressions, or rather to seek occasion to let them be born in the
heart of some one, in order that we may receive the same pleasures
and the same sacrifices which we have seen so well depicted in the
theatre.
The circumstances in which it is easiest to live according to the
world are those in which it is most difficult to live according to
God, and _vice versâ_. Nothing is so difficult according to the world
as the religious life; nothing is more easy according to God. Nothing
is easier than to live in great office and great wealth according to
the world; nothing is more difficult than to live in them according
to God, and not to take part in them and love them.
Those who believe without having read the Old and New Testaments, do
so because they have a saintly frame of mind, with which all that
they hear of our Religion agrees. They feel that a God has made them;
their will is to love God only, their will is to hate themselves
only. They feel that they have no power of themselves, that they are
unable to come to God, and if God come not to them, they can have
no communion with him. And they hear our Religion declare that men
must love God only, and hate self only, but that all being corrupt,
and unfit for God, God made himself man to unite himself to us. No
more is needed to convince men who have such a disposition and have a
knowledge of their duty and of their incompetence.
Those whom we see to be Christians without the knowledge of the
prophecies and evidences, are able to judge of their religion as well
as those who have that knowledge. They judge of it by the heart, as
others by the understanding. God himself inclines them to believe,
and thus they are effectually persuaded.